Free Republic

World's oldest voice recording goes online It's no-one's idea of great music -- to some, it may sound like a dolphin with tonsilitis -- but the ghostly warbling of a French folk song nearly 148 years ago comprises the oldest recording of the human voice, France's Academy of Sciences says. The 10-second recording was made by a Parisian inventor, Edouard-Leon Scott de Martinville on April 9 1860, when Emperor Napoleon III, the last monarch of France, was on the throne. It was made a whole 17 years before Thomas Edison made his historic message, "Mary Had a Little Lamb" on...

Archaeologists have Discovered the World's Oldest Inscription in Jiroft 05 November 2007 LONDON, (CAIS) -- Archaeologists have discovered the world's most ancient inscription in the Iranian city of Jiroft, near the Halil Roud historical site. "The inscription, discovered in a palace, was carved on a baked mud-brick whose lower left corner has only remained,” explained Professor Yousof Majid-Zadeh, head of the Jiroft excavation team. “The only ancient inscriptions known to experts before the Jiroft discovery were cuneiform and hieroglyph,” said Majid Zadeh, adding that,”the new-found inscription is formed by geometric shapes and no linguist around the world has been able...

Ming the clam is 'oldest animal' Shakespeare was writing plays when the clam was a juvenile A clam dredged up off the coast of Iceland is thought to have been the longest-lived creature discovered. Scientists said the mollusc, an ocean quahog clam, was aged between 405 and 410 years and could offer insights into the secrets of longevity. Researchers from Bangor University in Wales said they calculated the clam's age by counting rings on its shell. According to the Guinness Book of Records, the longest-lived animal was an Arctica clam found in 1982 aged 220. They are like tiny tape-recorders......

'Oldest' wall painting looks like modern art By Roger Highfield, Science Editor Last Updated: 6:56pm BST 11/10/2007 French archaeologists have discovered an 11,000-year-old work of art in northern Syria which is the oldest known wall painting, even though it looks like a work by a modernist. The painting resembles the work of Paul Klee The two square-metre painting, in red, black and white, was found at the Neolithic settlement of Djade al-Mughara on the Euphrates, northeast of the city of Aleppo. "It looks like a modernist painting," said Eric Coqueugniot, the team leader. "Some of those who saw it have...

SHELBYVILLE, Ind. — A 114-year-old Indiana woman who became the world's oldest person this week celebrated the distinction Thursday with a slice of her favorite cake. Edna Parker, who has outlived her husband, children and siblings, was confirmed as the world's oldest known person when Yone Mnagawa, a Japanese woman four months her senior, died on Monday. Dressed in a pink polka-dot dress and costume pearl jewelry, Parker was wheeled before television cameras and reporters Thursday in a dining room at the central Indiana nursing home where she lives. Clutching two old photographs — including one from the early 1900s...

Egypt's Oldest Known Art Identified, Is 15,000 Years Old Dan Morrison in Cairo, Egypt for National Geographic News July 11, 2007 Rock face drawings and etchings recently rediscovered in southern Egypt are similar in age and style to the iconic Stone Age cave paintings in Lascaux, France, and Altamira, Spain, archaeologists say. "It is not at all an exaggeration to call it 'Lascaux on the Nile,'" said expedition leader Dirk Huyge, curator of the Egyptian Collection at the Royal Museums of Art and History in Brussels, Belgium. "The style is riveting," added Salima Ikram of the American University in Cairo,...

Source: University of Haifa Released: Tue 15-May-2007, 08:50 ET Ancient Wooden Anchor Discovered The world's oldest wooden anchor was discovered during excavations in the Turkish port city of Urla, the ancient site of Liman Tepe / the Greek 1st Millennium BCE colony of Klazomenai, by researchers from the Leon Recanati Institute for Maritime Studies of the University of Haifa. The anchor, from the end of the 7th century BC, was found near a submerged construction, imbedded approximately.1.5 meters underground. Marine archaeologists excavating at Urla Newswise — The world's oldest wooden anchor was discovered during excavations in the Turkish port city...

Unrecognized: The World’s Oldest Monument 27/04/2007 By Osama al Eissa Jerusalem, Asharq Al-Awsat- Approximately two kilometers away from Jericho’s city center lies Tel es-Sultan (Sultan’s Hill), the oval-shaped mound that the oasis of Jericho, the oldest city in the world, is famous for. The world’s earliest settlement was located at Tel es-Sultan, which stands in the form of several layers of habitation that make up today’s mound. And yet despite its importance and its ability to attract the world’s greatest researchers, it is not included on the World Heritage List, which is precisely what the Palestinian Authority’s Department of Antiquities...

Scientific team finds one of world's oldest cities 22 February 2007 MADRID - A Spanish scientific team found one of the world's oldest cities, thought to be about 5,500 years old, in Syria. The discovery, based on pottery fragments and other ceramics found at the site, was announced in Madrid by two of the scientists in charge of the investigation, Ignacio Marquez of Spain's CSIC scientific research council and Juan Luis Moreno of the Universidad de La Coruña. According to reports, the find is of "the highest level" of scientific importance because of its ramifications for the understanding of history...

HARTFORD, Conn. - Emma Faust Tillman, who was born to former slaves and lived to see 21 American presidencies, died at a nursing home just four days after becoming the world's oldest-known living person. She was 114. Tillman, who lived independently until she was 110, died Sunday night in the company of several family members, said Karen Chadderton, administrator of Riverside Health and Rehabilitation Center in East Hartford. "She went peacefully," Chadderton said Monday. "She was a wonderful woman." Tillman she assumed the title as world's oldest person on Wednesday with the death of 115-year-old Emiliano Mercado del Toro of...

STOCKHOLM (AFP) - The world's oldest newspaper, Sweden's Post och Inrikes Tidningar, has embraced the digital age, ending its run as a print publication and opting to be published exclusively on the Internet. Founded in 1645 by Queen Christina, the Post och Inrikes Tidningar (PoIT) -- or Post and Domestic Newspapers -- was a staple for readers in Sweden throughout the late 17th and 18th century. But its readership dwindled as rival newspapers appeared, confining PoIT primarily to the publication of announcements from publicly listed companies, and financial and legal institutions by the 1900s. While the paper has not covered...

A 91-year-old man from East Sussex has become the oldest person in Britain to go paragliding, according to his son. Reg Rose-Innes, from Beddingham, flew above Devil's Dyke in Sussex for a 20-minute flight at 800ft (243m). He said after the tandem flight: "It was marvellous being up in the air. It was a gorgeous view and lovely day."

MEMPHIS, Tenn. — The world's oldest person has died. Elizabeth "Lizzie" Bolden was 116 when her time came today in a Memphis, Tennessee, nursing home. She'd lived there several years, but relatives say she spoke very little after a stroke two years ago.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - George Johnson, considered California's oldest living person at 112 and the state's last surviving World War I veteran, had experts shaking their heads over his junk food diet. "He had terrible bad habits. He had a diet largely of sausages and waffles," Dr. L. Stephen Coles, founder

SOFIA, Bulgaria - An almost 7,000-year old stone tablet found in Bulgaria bears carvings that might turn out to be one of the world's oldest inscriptions, a prominent Bulgarian archaeologist said Thursday. "These signs are unique and apparently bear a meaning," Nikolai Ovcharov told a press conference. Ovcharov said he had received the tablet from a private collector who had unearthed it 20 years ago. The collector asked to remain anonymous, because he risked criminal prosecution for looting or criminal possession of antiquities. The tablet, about three inches, carries five distinct signs each made up of two elements, Ovcharov said....

Is this the oldest human virus? (Filed: 18/07/2006) The papillomavirus has been afflicting humans and their ancestors for millions of years. Now scientists have worked out how it has evolved, reports Roger Highfield Hundreds of millions of years ago, a relative of this virus made dinosaurs sprout warts. When our ancestors split from the apes up to seven million years ago, the virus split with them. Among the earliest modern humans, it was still multiplying, spreading and evolving. Today, this virus, perhaps the oldest to afflict humankind, is causing more suffering than at any time in its history. Although many...

SIOUX FALLS, S.D. - No one in the bleachers at the Sioux Falls Canaries game was quite sure what was going on down on the field. They were all quiet, wondering and transfixed on the little old man digging into the batters' box. The infielders moved up on the grass, giggling, and pitcher looked as uncomfortable as anyone else would have felt. But to 83-year-old Jim Eriotes, it was serious business. Eriotes led off Tuesday's game for the Canaries against the St. Joe (Mo.) Blacksnakes and took four big swings _ even fouling a pitch off _ before striking out....

Shells may represent oldest known beads Bruce Bower Three sea-snail shells previously discovered at Stone Age sites in Israel and Algeria contain intentionally fashioned holes in their centers, making the finds the oldest known examples of personal decoration, a research team says. HOLE IN TWO. Two perforated shells from an Israeli site dated to between 135,000 and 100,000 years ago appear in different views (top group and bottom group). Vanhaeren, F. d'Errico The trio of perforated shells apparently served as beads, conclude Marian Vanhaeren of University College London and her colleagues. Holes in the shells look nothing like those that...

WASHINGTON -- The best evidence yet for the oldest life on Earth is found in odd-shaped, rock-like mounds in Australia that are actually fossils created by microbes 3.4 billion years ago, researchers report. "It's an ancestor of life. If you think that all life arose on this one planet, perhaps this is where it started," said Abigail Allwood, a researcher at the Australian Centre for Astrobiology and lead author of the new study. It appears Thursday in the journal Nature. The strange geologic structures - which range from smaller than a fingernail to taller than a man - are exactly...

What is the world's largest living creature? Scientists from the CSIC. the University of the Balearic Islands, Portugal, Carribean and the USA have discovered a Posidonia Oceanica, of more than 8 kilometers in length, and 100,000 years old. The 'Posideonia Oceanica' is, in layman's terms 'sea grass', and the wavy plains of this plant found off the coasts Ibiza and Formentera, have been, since 1999, part of the reason for the award to Ibiza as a 'Heritage of Humanity'. The huge plant was discovered between 'Es Freus' (the straits that separate Ibiza from Formentera) and the 'Ses Salines' beach....and quite...